65 Iowa 147 | Iowa | 1884
The land in question is the southwest quarter of section eighteen, township eighty-six, range twenty-seven. The east half was sold October 2, 1876, for the taxes of 1873, 1874 and 1875, and the deed was executed October 9, 1879. The west half was sold October 6, 1879, for the taxes of 1878, and the deed was executed October 21, 1882. The land occupied by the railroad for right of way is in the northwest quarter of said southwest quarter, and the ad quod damnum, proceedings under which it claims were had in October, 1880, but plaintiff was not made a party to the proceedings. On the eleventh of July, 1879, plaintiff filed in the office of the treasurer a notice of the expiration of the period of redemption from the sale of 1876, together with the affidavit of the publisher of the Webster county Gazette, in which he swears that said notice was published in said paper three consecutive weeks, commencing on the twenty-eighth of June, 1879. Attached to this was plaintiff’s affidavit, in which he swore that he was then the holder of the certificate of purchase
Defendant’s position is that, as the treasurer is authorized to execute the deed only when “ an affidavit of the service of the notice and the particular mode thereof, duly signed and verified by the holder of the certificate of purchase, his agent or attorney, shall have been filed in his office,” (Code, § 894,) and as the affidavits of plaintiff which were on file when the deeds were executed were insufficient, when considered separate from those of the publishers of the newspapers, to show either the service of the notice or the particular mode thereof, the execution of the deeds was unauthorized, and hence the land is still subject to the right of redemption from the sales. It will be important to inquire as to the soundness of this position only in case it shall be found that the service of notice of the expiration of the periods for redemption from the sales was, under the facts of the case, an essential prerequisite to the execution or the deed.
Reversed.